Determined umpire in total (8)
I believe the answer is:
adjudged
'determined' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'umpire in total' is the wordplay.
'umpire' becomes 'judge' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'total' becomes 'add' (synonyms).
'judge' put inside 'add' is 'ADJUDGED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for adjudged that I've seen before include "Declared" , "Decided" .)